Regression Testing for a Game Software

September 18, 2017
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We have discussed a lot about the video game market. It is forecasted that the global games market will reach up to $ 108 Billion with a mobile gaming percentage of 42%.

The software with the largest number of tweaks, releases, updates, and version are games. Video games have to be updated in line with the customer sentiments and satisfaction. Thus, Gaming Testing is a segment where regression plays a very crucial role.

Major challenges faced while testing a game software are:

Almost all games are based on mathematics, hence a focus should be taken to solve them for testing. It involves a huge amount of time when regression testing proves to be an ice breaking solution.

Maintaining deliverables for all the possible game versions, releases and updated is a very difficult task.

Thinking like an end user of different age category and finding bugs thinking from the user’s perspective is a very difficult task.

Time to market is an essence to a game’s success. Testing multiple game version at the same time becomes a very difficult task for the game testing team.

Steps for Regression Testing of a Game Software

Step 1: Smoke and Sanity Sounds familiar?? Butsmoke and sanity testingare essential to make sure the system or the platform under test is under desirable conditions. The main purpose is to ensure if the system is stable even before the game testing process is initiated.

Step 2: Requirements AnalysisTesting requirements of the modifications or updates to the code must be meticulously analyzed. Often users encounter bugs that are found to be a result of last-minute alterations which can be found in requirement analysis. Mandatory requirements for game testing must be carefully assessed, and test cases for regression should be prepared such that the core features of the game software remain firmly intact.

Step 3: Identifying Test Cases for Critical Game FunctionsOf the various test cases designed for game regression testing, the most critical for gamers and development teams alike are the Sanity test cases that check the basic functionality of the gaming system. In this, ordinary setup related test cases are then tested on priority. Then, the test cases that are designed for regression testing are executed, as per the bandwidth and the requirement.Integration testingand its test cases are highly important and there needs to be a series of regression test cases especially while performing integration testing. A sudden last moment bug fix, for example, can break the integration between multiple modules, even in the tested game applications.

Step 4: Test Case SelectionAfter prioritizing the test cases, they are selected for regression test execution. The selection of these test cases is basically done in the area of frequent changes and based on the features and their criticality. Tests are run aggressively for those units of code that have undergone multiple changes repeatedly.